Reflection of my first Mindfulness course

It is nearly three years since I attended my first Breathworks Mindfulness course in Manchester with Vidyamala Burch, the founder of Breathworks. It was a course for health professionals to integrate mindfulness into work. In a very unmindful (post relationship break up) state I left my handbag in the black cab I had taken from the train station to the venue. The moment I realised I didn’t have it I watched the taxi drove off as I looked on with a feeling of panic. The next hour was not pleasant and I remember thinking this wasn’t the best introduction to this woman I admired greatly! I had of course wanted to appear as this perfectly zen mindful participant ready to hang on to her every word. Eventually after lots of frantic calls to taxi firms (tracing black cab drivers is no fun!) I joined the group much and about an hour later the taxi driver returned my handbag. Vidyamala then asked if I minded being a volunteer for demonstrating primary and secondary experience (the first week of an eight-week course). This was and still is the most powerful thing I have learnt perhaps ever! Mindfulness isn’t something you do intellectually, it is experiential. I had been meditating daily for a year at that point but it wasn’t until I attended this course that I really got it, I felt it, I experienced it and I began to gain the insight into my own thoughts and behaviour to make choices and to be kind to myself when I still fall into those habitual patterns. I was fortunate to have an amazing first teacher but I learnt that our best teacher is ourselves.
A few weeks later I started an eight-week course and I looked forward to that weekly coming together to reflect , learn and connect with people on a deeper level and to understand that we all have so much more in common than we don’t.

The next course is starting on Monday January 22nd at Sharrow Old Junior School